Top official caught for accepting bribes to frame a business executive

Chinese authorities arrested a top censorship official in Beijing last week, on charges of taking more than 40 million Yuan ($5.85m USD) in bribes for framing a business rival to anti-virus firm Rising.

Yu Bing, head of Beijing’s public security bureau – the organization that handles local enforcement for the Great Firewall of China – was under investigation for framing an executive at rival anti-virus firm Micropoint Technology, allegedly at Rising’s request.

Micropoint executive Tian Yakui ended up spending more than 11 months in prison on charges of authoring computer viruses and breaking into computer networks to steal trade secrets – all based on evidence manufactured by Yu and his associates.

Tian was formerly an executive at Rising before leaving with the company’s managing director to found Micropoint, which endured more than three years of setbacks due to fallout from Tian’s arrest.

TheIrish Times notes that the arrest has prompted questions “at the senior levels of the communist party” about how China’s enforcement arm runs its Great Firewall – where, generally speaking, nearly every e-mail and web posting is scoured by “net nannies” for discussion on subversive topics such as the banned Falun Gong movement.

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